Food waste manifesto

Scotland is producing 1.4 million tonnes of food waste each year, 630,000 tonnes of which comes from our homes. 60% of this food waste could be avoided, and represents a possible saving of £460 a year for the average household. If we all stopped wasting food that could have be eaten on this scale, the benefit to the planet would be the equivalent of taking 1 in 4 cars off Scotland’s roads.

In Glasgow, the 300,000 properties within the city produce approximately 80,000 tonnes of food waste every year. This equates to 13% of the total household food waste produced in Scotland.

Our vision is a Glasgow where food waste is minimised, surplus food re-distributed where possible, and any unavoidable food waste is recycled.

Key message

Our Approach

Working with partners and the wider Glasgow community our aims are:

to encourage schools to engage their pupils in matters concerning food waste and encourage food waste reduction both in the school and in the home, whilst also reducing the food waste produced on site.

to encourage businesses to minimise their food waste, inform and encourage their customers to reduce their household food waste.

to encourage supermarkets and food retailers to introduce measures to reduce their food waste, encourage their customers to reduce their household food waste, and re-distribute any surplus food to Glasgow community groups.

to encourage all public and private caterers to adhere to the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2014 and recycle their food waste.

We support the Scottish Government’s proposed food waste reduction target, the introduction of a Household recycling charter, and Glasgow City Council’s roll-out of a city-wide food waste recycling service.